


One hundred and forty nine days

by ToxicPineapple



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Angst, Bittersweet, Chiaki has been better!, Coma, Depression, Gen, In that Komaeda canonically has cancer, It's not a focus, Melancholy, Mentions of Cancer, This isn't a happy fic just warning you, friendships, implied depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27487888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: It’s just… it’s not that Chiaki loves Hajime, not in that way, and Hajime doesn’t love her, either, despite awkward fumbling kisses behind their middle school baseball field and forced love confessions under the cherry trees, but seeing Hajime like this makes Chiaki feel cold and loose and empty, utterly devoid of anything… conducive to a relationship. She’s not broken, because that’s not a word that’s applicable to people, not really. But Chiaki doesn’t feel very much right now, not after a hundred and forty nine days where everything has been exactly the same-- exactly what she hasn’t wanted it to be.All the mugs of warm milk and soft blankets put over her shoulders in the world couldn’t fix that.But Chiaki is sorry. She’s really, really sorry. She wishes…Well, maybe after Hajime wakes up. (After he dies.)---Chiaki visits the hospital for the hundred and forty ninth day that Hajime is in a coma, and as she makes small talk with his nurse, contemplates the person that she's become. (Or the lack thereof.)
Relationships: (If you can call it that) - Relationship, Hinata Hajime & Nanami Chiaki, Komaeda Nagito & Nanami Chiaki, Nanami Chiaki/Tsumiki Mikan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	One hundred and forty nine days

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning! hajime is in a coma. there is no telling whether he'll wake up or not. this piece doesn't have a hopeful ending. also komaeda has cancer, it's not a focus but there's a good paragraph about the fact that he's undergone chemo. tread with caution please don't trigger yourself <3

Chiaki checks herself in at the front desk, but it’s more of a pleasantry than much else, because the receptionist’s grey eyes and short red hair have become familiar to her by now, just like the pretty silver name plate she has pinned to the collar of her flannel shirt. It’s a sympathetic look, Chiaki thinks, that Koizumi-san is wearing as she slides a visitor’s pass across the counter.

Mmm. Well, Chiaki really doesn’t mind being pitied. Her friend Hajime would hate it, hate the look on Koizumi’s face and everything about this situation, really, but Hajime isn’t… here right now, and hasn’t been, so it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. At the very least, if Chiaki pretends hard enough, it can be  _ like  _ it doesn’t really matter what Hajime would think. So Chiaki clips the visitor’s pass to her belt and pulls down her mask to give Koizumi a grateful smile, before tugging it back up over her nose and walking down the hall, letting her feet take her the rest of the way on autopilot.

When Chiaki reaches the familiar door, she reaches up and she knocks. Not for Hajime; he won’t hear her, or even if he does (because they say that coma patients can sometimes hear you, when you speak to them, and maybe that would go for knocking, too) he couldn’t answer, so there wouldn’t be much a point in that. No, she’s knocking for Komaeda, Hajime’s roommate, a boy who had long, curling pink tinted white hair in all the pictures that he showed Chiaki, but now has barely any hair at all, just a light fuzz on the top of his head that grew back after the chemotherapy.

It isn’t Komaeda’s voice that answers her, though, but rather Tsumiki-san’s, the nurse who looks over the both of them most consistently. When Chiaki pushes open the door, tugging one of the loops of her mask off of her ear, she sees why. Komaeda is sleeping now, his features much more relaxed than they are when he’s awake. With all the wires snaking around his lithe form, tubes hooked up to his arms, and dark circles under his eyes, Komaeda could be in the same position as Hajime, really.

But there’s no heart monitor, for Komaeda, no ventilator, just an easy rise and fall of his chest. Komaeda will wake back up, probably. He’ll open his eyes again, probably before Chiaki leaves, and he’ll tell her about the latest book he’s been reading, the one that’s still opened in his lap, that his limp, pale hands are still loosely wrapped around. Hajime won’t. Hajime will be like this.

Hajime has been like this, for… Chiaki looks at her phone, lips pressing together. One hundred and forty nine days, now. If he was going to wake up, he probably would’ve woken up within two weeks of falling into the coma. At least, that’s what the doctor was saying, back when he first went under, when they still had all this hope, when it was all  _ his condition is stable  _ and  _ we’re going to do the best that we can for him. _ It’s not that Chiaki doesn’t think he’s going to wake up. She doesn’t think anything. Doesn’t know  _ what  _ to think. But she knows that most coma patients who are going to wake up do it within two weeks.

And it’s been one hundred and forty nine days.

Tsumiki is changing the bandages on one of Komaeda’s wrists. She smiles briefly at Chiaki, but doesn’t speak. It makes sense. Tsumiki is generally timid, Chiaki thinks, so she’s not much for small talk, but she’s also a very dedicated nurse. It’s… something of a relief, really, that someone as good as Tsumiki is here keeping an eye on Hajime all the time. Not like that means anything. If Hajime is going to die, he’s going to die, and no matter how good Tsumiki is, that’s just going to happen. But at least if he dies, there won’t be anybody to blame.

Chiaki doesn’t like blaming people. Doesn’t like being angry. So it’s nice that there aren’t any scapegoats. Nobody for her to throw her broken heart at.

…She’s so tired.

The chair legs scrape quietly against the tile floor, but neither Chiaki nor Tsumiki (nor Hajime nor Komaeda) react to the sound. It’s familiar, as familiar as the steady beep of the heart monitor that Hajime’s hooked up to, because Chiaki always uses this chair, always pulls it over next to Hajime. Has been every day for a hundred and forty nine days.

It squeaks slightly when she sits down, pulling her backpack off of her shoulder, resting it down by her feet. That’s familiar, too.

Hajime’s hand is cold when she reaches out and takes it in both of hers. Poor circulation like this. Though Chiaki should probably just be grateful that his heart is even beating at all. If this technology didn’t exist, Hajime would be dead right now. No probably, no maybe. He would… definitely be dead.

She doesn’t like thinking about Hajime dying as a definite thing. But it’s so easy nowadays. Chiaki is almost numb, looking at his peaceful, sleeping face, features undisturbed, lips slightly parted underneath the mask. It’s the same thing every time she comes here, just this, him, them. The quiet, broken only by his assisted breathing, and the  _ beep beep beep  _ on Chiaki’s left. It’s so different from how things used to be between the two of them. There was so much more laughter back then, as Chiaki beat Hajime again and again in every video game they played. Even if there was quiet, there was usually the world around them to provide some kind of background music.

And they didn’t really need the noise, anyway, to get along. They were best friends. (They  _ are  _ best friends.) The silences were never so deafening when Hajime was awake.

Tsumiki’s vans make muted padding noises against the floor as she comes to sit on the other side of Hajime, lifting a chair and lowering herself into it. She moves as though she’s giving him a check up, her faded violet eyes sweeping over his frame, but Chiaki knows why she really came over here, why she always comes by when Chiaki is here, even when she’s off duty. Why Chiaki has woken up at Hajime’s bedside to a blanket draped around her shoulders, or a steaming mug of warm milk on the counter beside her.

“You’re a little later today, Nanami-san,” Tsumiki’s voice is as high and gentle as it always is. Chiaki doesn’t look at her face, but rather her hands, which are steady as she checks over Hajime. They’re always steady when she’s working with patients, Chiaki thinks, but when she stills, they shake. If Chiaki had more energy, she’d wonder about it. But right now all she can do is admire Tsumiki’s composure.

As ever, Chiaki takes a moment to weigh and place every single word before she speaks, her head tilting to the side, gaze still affixed to Hajime, and the way Tsumiki’s hands rest on his pulse point, just beneath his Adam’s Apple. “The bus was late,” she says, her own hands squeezing Hajime’s. He doesn’t squeeze back. Never does. “I thought I’d have to walk for a second… but it came. That was nice.”

“Ah,” Tsumiki nods, and she smiles, which Chiaki can see because her eyes crinkle at the edges, even above her mask. “This might be presumptuous of me, so I really apologise… but I was worried that something might have happened, ehehe… I’m glad it was just the bus.”

Quiet for a moment, Chiaki puffs out her cheeks. “Even if something had happened, I would’ve come, probably.” Not probably. Chiaki says that out of force of habit, but there’s no doubt about it. She’d have come no matter what happened. “You know that.”

“I do,” Tsumiki says, and her voice is sad. Chiaki averts her gaze. “I do. Uhm,” she removes her hands from Hajime, having finished, and now they shake a little as she wrings them in front of her, smoothing down the creases in her scrubs. “Finals are coming up for you, right? Ah, a-aren’t you in University? I thought I remembered something like that…”

“I am,” Chiaki affirms. Tsumiki pays a lot of attention. They do talk a fair amount when Chiaki comes by, especially when Komaeda is resting, and when Tsumiki doesn’t have anything else to be getting to, but still. It’s nice how attentive she is, and how gentle. Chiaki wishes she could appreciate it better. “It’s okay. I’ll probably do some studying here.”

What neither of them says, though it looks like Tsumiki might want to, is that some of the exams will probably take place during visiting hours here at the hospital. Which means that Chiaki will probably have to choose between her finals, and coming here to visit Hajime. She knows what Hajime wants, what her parents and cousin want, what Tsumiki probably thinks that she could do, caring and understanding looks aside, but she also knows what she’s probably going to end up doing.

Unless Hajime has woken up by then.

…Heh.

“Are you having a good day, Tsumiki-san?” Chiaki prompts. She’s not the type for small talk with others on these visits, aside from Komaeda, obviously, but Tsumiki is… different. It’s hard to describe. In another life, there would’ve been many things Chiaki could’ve named that draw her to Tsumiki. Her striking eyes and thick lashes and choppy dark purple hair all make her very pretty, and her voice is nice and she’s always so gentle and sweet. She’s a good nurse, dedicated and conscientious, and she’s kind to Chiaki. She seems to be genuinely interested in Chiaki, too, as a person, which is a big part of it, and they’re around the same age, so there should be nothing stopping her.

It’s just… it’s not that Chiaki loves Hajime, not in that way, and Hajime doesn’t love her, either, despite awkward fumbling kisses behind their middle school baseball field and forced love confessions under the cherry trees, but seeing Hajime like this makes Chiaki feel cold and loose and empty, utterly devoid of anything… conducive to a relationship. She’s not broken, because that’s not a word that’s applicable to people, not really. But Chiaki doesn’t feel very much right now, not after a hundred and forty nine days where everything has been exactly the same-- exactly what she hasn’t wanted it to be.

All the mugs of warm milk and soft blankets put over her shoulders in the world couldn’t fix that.

But Chiaki is sorry. She’s really, really sorry. She wishes…

Well, maybe after Hajime wakes up. (After he dies.) Then maybe… she can move on. She can feel.

…But not right now.

Tsumiki tells Chiaki about her day, as always, and avoids any personal information about patients, speaking with fondness about interactions with children and coworkers. She’s so genuinely kind, so sweet, in the way that she describes people and the way her voice inflects. Chiaki feels infatuated with her, sort of, with the way she gestures with her hand as she rambles and then laughs and apologises, but she can’t help wondering if the infatuation she feels is just so that she can feel anything at all.

Oh well. The specifics don’t really matter. Until Chiaki drops out of college and Hajime either wakes up or doesn’t, she’s not going to have any real feelings to identify, anyway. So things can stay as they are for now.

And for however long after that.

**Author's Note:**

> poor mikan 


End file.
